


Fidelius (The Naming of Things)

by Zooey_Glass



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, remix_redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-28
Updated: 2008-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooey_Glass/pseuds/Zooey_Glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>'I'm tired, Neville,' he says. 'Tired of being stared at; tired of being Harry Potter.'</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Fidelius (The Naming of Things)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2007 Remix Redux challenge on Livejournal: remix of [Fidelius](http://www.neville-sam.com/fidelius.html) by Chelle.
> 
> Betaed by Parenthetical and Social_retard86.

Hermione doesn't want to do it when he asks her.

'But Harry -' she says, and breaks off, staring at him in confusion.

'There are still plenty of Death Eaters out there,' he says. 'I'll always be a target, and so will you, if they think they can use you to get to me.'

'No more than during the war,' she argues. 'We can set up other protections, you don't have to -'

'It's better for everyone,' he says firmly, cutting across her before she can launch into the litany of other options, the debate and discussion and doubt that he knows she'll draw him into if he gives her the chance.

She stares at him for a moment, then nods, lips tight.

He knows she still wants to ask questions, like _Why _ and - more pertinently - _Why now _, but the war's broken her of that habit. The reasons he's given her are flimsy at best: the old Hermione wouldn't have accepted them for a moment. The fact that she's prepared to do so now, that she takes the request like an order, says everything about why Harry needs to disappear.

'Have you chosen a Secret Keeper?' Hermione asks instead, locking her questions and fears away and covering them with a brisk, businesslike manner. Another habit she developed during the war. 'Remus? I'm sure he'd be willing.'

'No,' Harry says slowly, and he sees the glimmer of fear in her eyes, the worry that he'll ask Ron to do this. 'Not Remus. I'm going to ask Neville.'

* * *

He doesn't lie to Neville.

There's no need, really: he knows that Neville will do what he asks, even without any explanation. Perversely, that's the reason Harry tries to explain.

'I'm tired, Neville,' he says. 'Tired of being stared at; tired of being Harry Potter.'

'Who do you want to be, then?' Neville asks.

'Nobody,' Harry says.

Neville swallows and holds out his hand, pricks his finger to offer the drop of blood it takes to bind the charm.

Afterwards, Harry walks through Diagon Alley at the busiest time of day, jostles through the crowds with everyone else. No one stares or points; there are no whispers as he passes.

'It's brilliant, Neville,' he says. 'Like having an Invisibility Cloak wrapped around my identity. Nobody even notices me now.'

Neville doesn't say anything.

* * *

Despite what he says to Neville, Harry does find it a little bit weird being effectively invisible to everybody else. It's strange to walk past Ron in the street without being recognised, or to deliver a new book to Remus and have him smile and offer vague thanks before closing the door in his face. But there's freedom in it too, freedom from reproachful eyes, eyes full of questions he can't answer.

Besides, he's always wanted to travel. If he's not going to be Harry Potter any more, he can remake himself somewhere new.

He goes all over the world, tries on different lives. It's fun making up names and inventing personalities to go with them, and he realises that this is the first time he's ever been able to choose who to be. Now he doesn't have a name to live up to; he can take on an identity one day and shed it the next. In Italy, he's Joseph, who flirts with all the girls and allows their mamas to feed him up. Scott in New York attends wild parties and goes home with a different boy every night. When he's tired of both, he makes the journey back to Scotland, visits art galleries and museums in the guise of shy, quiet Geoffrey.

He writes letters about his travels, describing the adventures he's been having. At first he sends them to everyone, remembers birthdays and anniversaries, keeps in touch with everyone who made it through the war. There's something slightly unsettling about writing to people who would no longer recognise him in the street, though. Out of sight out of mind, so the saying goes, and judging by how few owls he receives in reply, it's true enough.

Gradually he stops writing to everyone but Neville.

* * *

He's having a pint in a pub in London when a red-haired girl approaches him, saying she feels as if she knows him but can't quite place him.

'What's your name?' she asks, and he starts to say 'Harry'. Before the word is half out of his mouth he sees her gaze start to slip, her mind unable to hold onto the name.

'James,' he finds himself saying instead.

'James,' she says, smiling. 'That's a nice name. I'm Emily.'

Somehow he ends up going home with her at the end of the night, and then doesn't get around to leaving again. They settle into a quiet routine together: cooking and talking and making love. Playing house. Harry imagines that this was how his mum and dad must have lived, once upon a time, and when Emily starts dropping hints about meeting her family, leafing ostentatiously through books on weddings and babies, he goes along with it. She's not serious, not really - it's only a few months since they first ran into each other - but it's a nice dream.

One day he picks up one of the books himself, one that lists names and their meanings. He flicks idly through until he finds a page she's marked.

_James: from the Hebrew meaning 'supplanter' _

He stares at the words for a long time. Then he puts the book down, carefully, and walks out of the house.

* * *

He goes back to travelling, never staying more than a couple of nights in one place. Sometimes he tries telling people the truth about who he is, but it never works. They laugh in his face, or are struck mysteriously deaf, or just forget to see him at all. Eventually he gives up, takes to changing names as often as he changes his clothes, and sometimes more often.

It gets harder and harder to remember who he's supposed to be. He stops talking to people, except for the few words it takes to pick guys up in the sleazy clubs he's taken to frequenting. He doesn't bother to ask their names, and they don't ask his, just fuck him hard and frantic. Once he hears one of them gasp out a name as he comes, and Harry understands that it's not even his body the guy's seeing.

It's after one of these anonymous encounters that Harry finds that he's been robbed. He stumbles bleary-eyed out of his hotel room, intending to pay for another night, and reaches for his wallet to discover that it's not there. Most of his money's in Muggle bank accounts, since Gringotts wouldn't recognise him as Harry Potter, and the wallet is - was - stuffed full of credit cards in other people's names.

'I - I don't seem to have my wallet,' he says in bewilderment.

'Perhaps you dropped it,' the receptionist says brightly. 'There are a couple in lost property. What's the name?'

Harry opens his mouth to speak, and realises he has no idea.

'It's a secret,' he says, and starts laughing uncontrollably, long, gasping laughs that fill up the room.

The receptionist stares at him in horror, backing away.

He stops laughing. 'It's a secret,' he says again, quietly this time. Then he turns and runs, Apparating away as soon as he's out of her line of sight.

* * *

He wanders for a few days, drifting from place to place and - when he remembers to eat - stealing food. Eventually he finds himself near Ron and Hermione's flat, although he had no intention of going there. But he's always gone to them when he was in trouble, and apparently it's hard to break the habit of a lifetime. He can't quite bring himself to knock on the door, though, so he just lingers out in the street, waiting for one of them to pass by. He's there for hours, shivering in the rain, before Hermione appears, walking briskly along with bags of shopping.

'Hermione!' Harry calls, and she jumps and looks at him in alarm before composing herself.

'Do I know you?' she says carefully, calmly.

'Hermione, it's me, it's Harry,' he says urgently.

She shrinks away from him. 'I'm sorry, I think you've made a mistake,' she says, and hurries away down the street before he has a chance to say anything else.

When the police turn up half an hour later - _Come on, sonny, time to move on_ \- he realises that she didn't even recognise him as a wizard.

* * *

Even though the encounter with Hermione should have been enough to make him understand, Harry goes to the Burrow. There's never been a time he wasn't welcomed there, even immediately after the war, when he could barely bring himself to look Molly in the eye.

Ginny's out in the garden when he arrives, playing with a little boy. Harry dimly remembers getting the birth notice, in the time before he gave up sending owls to anyone. He calls out to her, and she looks up with a start, hand going straight to her wand.

He barely gets out alive.

* * *

The days - maybe even weeks - after that are a blur. Harry keeps moving, speaking to people as little as possible. He knows there's somewhere he needs to get to, but he can't stop panicking long enough to think about it clearly. Apparition is too difficult now - no chance of fixing his destination in his mind when he can't even keep hold of his own name - so he walks, drawn on by the tugging of a half-forgotten bond.

The tugging doesn't ease until he's standing outside the house. He doesn't think he's ever been there before, but he recognises it anyway. There are plants everywhere, tendrils of honeysuckle framing the door and new shoots coming through the bare soil. _Neville _, he thinks, and takes a deep breath before he knocks on the door.

Then he catches sight of a face in the glass. He knows it must be his reflection, but he doesn't know who it is. He batters against it with open hands until it goes away, replaced by jagged fragments edged in red.

Neville comes to the door with wand raised, face wary, but when he casts _Lumos_ Harry can see recognition in his eyes. He feels the tug of that nameless bond start up again, an invisible link between them.

'Harry?' Neville whispers, and then squeezes his eyes closed as if it hurts him to look at Harry's face.

'You... You know who I am?' Harry whispers wonderingly.

'You're Harry Potter,' Neville replies, and even though Harry knows it's true, it's been so long since he heard it that it sounds like a stranger's name. He demands to hear it again, presses Neville to repeat himself, to give voice to all the things that go with that name: Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, Saviour of the Wizarding World. None of them sound like him.

Finally Neville chokes out, 'You're my friend.'

Something breaks inside Harry, and he reaches forward and wraps his arms around Neville, holds him tight.

Neville smells of rain and green and new growth, and when his arms come up to return the embrace they feel warm and solid, as permanent as the oak tree growing outside his window.

For the first time in a long time, Harry knows who he is.


End file.
